Life Goes On (49 page)

‘I'll take Dismal.' I tapped the brute with my boot. A party of bird watchers walked along the bridge, each with binoculars and a recognition manual. ‘Let's go inside where we can talk.'

‘It's scorching today,' he said. ‘I do nothing but drink. Maybe Maria will make us a pot of her strong tea. I've trained her to mash a pot of jollop in true Nottinghamshire style. I'm very proud of that, Michael. I've not been completely idle since coming here.'

We sat in the cool living room. Even Bridgitte had never made the place gleam like this. ‘How does she find the time to do so much?'

‘She's at it from morning till night.'

‘She's pregnant. She should be taking care of herself.'

He lay back on the settee. ‘I know. I try to tell her. But she won't listen. And do you know, Michael' – he got up and leaned forward – ‘she's a little bogger. She's at me all night. Bloody marvellous. I feel like the Caliph of Baghdad. It's as if there was three of her. I keep telling her she ought to stop because she's having a young 'un, but it don't mek a blind bit o' difference. It's just one more thing I've got to thank
you
for.'

‘I'll regret it to my dying day.'

He got up and chucked me under the chin. ‘I'm going to marry her, though. We're all set for it. I don't do owt by halves. I'll just ask her to bring us some tea, and cheese sandwiches.' Dismal must have heard, for he came in and lay by the empty firegrate. I stroked his head. He would keep me company while I was driving through the night to Peppercorn Cottage. He might earn his keep by devouring a few rats, and maybe holding Percy Blemish at bay if he got sufficiently deranged to come at me with a knife.

‘The fact is,' Bill said, ‘that eight of you might very well be enough. On the other hand, if there's Tu-tu to reckon with, it might very well not be.'

‘Who?'

‘Tu-tu.'

‘Who the hell's she?'

‘It's he. He used to be known as Bantam, because he's under five foot and very thin, but he took against the name all of a sudden and said he didn't want to be called Bantam anymore. Well, because he was a crack shot with a two-two rifle, we called him Two-two. He didn't mind that. I never knew his real name. I'll tell you one thing, though, there might be eight of you, but if Two-two spotted you he'd pick you all off if you tried to rush him from a hundred yards.'

‘Not the way we're doing it.'

‘Oh, it's two at the back and two at the front, is it? But you'll need to send two down the chimney as well if Two-two's anywhere near.'

‘Are you sure he's in their gang?'

‘Was, last time I heard. Where the hell's Maria got to with that grub?'

‘Take your sweat.' I had a couple of shotguns and a two-two rifle hidden in the house, with plenty of ammunition, from the days when I went shooting for the pot. ‘I can't take you with me.'

He shook his head, a glint of envy, his teeth clenched. ‘With your rifle I could cover you. Anybody showed his snout at an upstairs window and I'd have him in half a second, right between the eyes. I got a rabbit and two pigeons with it the other day.'

‘I thought I'd hidden it.'

‘Michael, from me? Hidden anything from me? Don't grumble. We should both get in that car. None of Claud's lot will see me if you throw a couple of blankets over me in the back. We'll take the rifle and the shotguns. Just tell me your plan of attack, and I'll explain how we do it. I was in the Sherwood Foresters all through the war. With a few chaps from the Old Stubborns I'd clean half London up.'

Maria came in with a laden tray, and he couldn't resist stroking her arse as she set it down, but she kissed him, so he had his reward twice over. I was tempted to take him to Buckshot Farm, because he was capable of doing all he said, but his presence would alter the balance of the plan. I explained the scheme in case he could offer any constructive criticism.

Three sandwiches and a pint of tea went into his trapdoor. ‘Four cars is too much.' He drew a hand across his mouth. ‘Two's plenty. Then you've got six blokes for the assault. Claud always was extravagant with motors. You want precision, not saturation. If you've got three at the back and three at the front, you've got one man at each side to cover the two who go in. Right?'

‘I suppose so.'

‘Right. Of the two who go in, one bloke runs straight upstairs and works his way down. The other bloke stays as a door-block with a cosh to catch 'em. Same from both sides. Can't miss. Depends on the size of the house, but it definitely sounds as if you need six, not four. If it was one of a row of houses we could approach it on a parallel track by blowing holes through the walls with grenades till we got to the house we wanted. I was a bloody dab hand at street fighting. Loved it. It'd be a picnic for me, Michael. I'll cover you from the front, and make four Molotov cocktails before we go, to lob through the windows if things get sticky.'

‘Fuck you,' I exclaimed. ‘We want to capture the place, not have a holocaust.'

‘I was getting carried away, I admit. You can scrub the Molotov cocktail bit. But you see my point, Michael? Just drop me off in the vicinity half an hour beforehand. I'll saw the end off one of your shotguns and stick it under my coat, and take one of your kitchen knives. I'll put a hood over my face and blacken my hands. When you hear me whistle from the front upstairs window you'll be able to walk in. I'll have 'em trussed up neatly for you.'

‘I thought you were in love,' I said. ‘You sound bored out of your mind.'

‘A bit o' both never comes amiss.'

‘We don't want a conflagration,' I said, ‘and we don't want a massacre. We only want the goods.'

‘That's as maybe, Michael, but if Two-two's anywhere near, watch out. I wouldn't like to see you come back on crutches. You wouldn't live very well on a pension from Moggerhanger.'

‘The plan's not only been fixed, but it's already in operation. They'd die if they knew I was talking to you about it. I must be out of my mind.'

‘I've got your best interests at heart. I owe you too much not to have. I suppose I'm getting sentimental in my old age.'

I finished my first sandwich, the last on the plate. ‘I'm taking Dismal for company. I'd also like a few flasks, tins of food, and parcels of sandwiches. You never know. I like to be well supplied with grub when I'm on a car trip. There's less chance of having an accident. I also want the two-two rifle with fifty cartridges, and one of the shotguns.'

‘You're very wise,' he said. ‘Maria will go to the village shop and get some more bread. I tried teaching her to drive the other day in your old banger, but she didn't seem to get the hang of the steering wheel, so she'll have to go on the bike.'

I always kept the keys on me, but starting the engine with a bit of wire would have been no problem for him. ‘As long as she doesn't take too much time. I can't be late for my appointment.'

‘What's the hurry? It's only four o'clock. You don't have to be there till nine, which means you can lounge around here till seven, and still make it if you crawl along at thirty miles an hour.'

‘Maybe I'll have a bit of a kip beforehand, then, if I can rely on you to wake me by six.'

‘I'm as much interested in this as if I was going myself. I'll see you get woken up, and have a royal send-off. I still wish you would let me come with you and give the lads a hand. I'd enjoy it, what's more.'

Dismal finally realised I was home, because he followed me upstairs and spread himself across the bed. It wasn't easy to get to sleep for either of us. What troubled Dismal I had no way of knowing. He'd make an effort to get his head down, then stand up and walk across my legs for no reason, finally flopping back with a sigh across my ankles. From the woolly caves and tunnels of my half-snooze I would push such leg weight off in case he bent them permanently and turned me into a modern-day victim of rickets. Every few minutes I would wake up from the nightmare of Bill having forgotten to call me. It was nine o'clock, getting dark, and the raid had started. Searchlights criss-crossed the sky to the sound of cannonfire, and Moggerhanger's paratroops were descending sedately through the shrapnel.

He tapped me on the shoulder at five minutes to six, and I would have felt better if I had gone for a five-mile walk instead of taking a nap, though a few doses of Maria's Nottingham tea – on a mug of which a bricklayer could walk forty storeys up and not feel nervous – followed by a long cold shower, soon steadied my shaking hands. I insisted on Dismal's bowl being filled, and he lapped it clean with such gusto that we gave him another, after which he stood on a leg and his tail, and flipped the bowl bottom-side-up with his tongue.

‘I'll miss that dog,' Bill said. ‘For God's sake, don't let him get killed. I'd never get over it. He runs a mile every morning to the village for my newspaper and sixty whiffs. I don't know where you got him, but he's a godsend.'

Dismal farted in appreciation of this eulogy, and slid under the settee. His inability to converse as a human, as hurtful to his soul as it would have been to ours if he ever succeeded, occasionally lured him into disagreeable alternatives. ‘Don't let him get near the Roller,' Bill said, ‘or the paint'll fall off. It's a distressing habit he's got into lately. That strong cheddar plays hell with my guts as well.'

At half past six we packed the grub into the spare front seat, plus a couple of blankets to cover Dismal during the time at action stations, and to conceal the two-two rifle and shotgun. Dismal clambered in like an old age pensioner, though he couldn't be more than three years old, and I fastened myself in the driver's seat.

‘Contact!'

‘Give 'em hell,' Bill said. ‘I wish I was coming with you. I'd be in that house like a three-bellied snake.'

‘I'll be safer on my own than with a bloke like you. You're barmy, and that's a fact.'

He turned on that immortal berserker grin from Nottingham. ‘I know I am. It feels marvellous, though – at times.' He thrust an umbrella through the open window. ‘You might need this. Only don't prod Dismal. It's the one you picked up in the tube station, remember?'

He patted my cheek, and then I drifted down the lane on a day when the pollen count was high. My anxieties vanished. Where they went I did not know, and cared less. In spite of my waving him back, Dismal flopped over onto the front seat and took silent snaps at the smoke rings from my cigar as we bowled along towards the Huntingdon road.

The cloudless day began to scare me. I wanted to turn north or south, or even to spin back east, rather than continue west for the job I had to do. I would have felt better if dusk and rain threatened and all heaters were burning to keep us warm, because then my one impulse would have been to stick to my task and get it done, just to escape the winter and jump back into the snuggery of home.

There was something festive as I glided through the lanes. My feelings were out of control. I wanted to put on my party hat – I actually looked in the glove box in case one was stashed there – and pull into the next layby for a suck at my brandy flask. I waved at a red-headed young woman by the roadside on going through a village, and she gestured with a smile that made me scared at the notion of doing something indisputably daft during the period of the raid.

The green and yellow belly of England pulled me along. My eyes fed on dark woods, on waving corn and meadows. I drove by wealthy houses. I threaded steadfast villages, no face starving or anybody in a hurry. I was glad to be travelling on a perfect evening, and happy at feeling different to everyone I passed. It was like going into battle as a soldier, because I didn't place myself one second in front of my life. Otherwise I might stop and cut my throat.

Crows disputed for the shade of a tree when I stopped at a give-way sign. Dismal yawned, but when I pushed his snout aside I'm sure he laughed inwardly. Even a dog could sense our luck at being inside a moving car. The familiar traffic island on the Great North Road gave me a peculiar feeling to be cutting it at right angles instead of going north or south. I let half a dozen juggernauts go by before getting onto it, and a car behind hooted, expecting me to shoot into the stream with such a fast car. But I was careful, for if in my life I was to have a traffic accident, the time was now. In one way I wouldn't have minded a collision just deadly enough to get me into hospital yet not kill me – a Blighty one, as Bill might say – but failing that I was cautious in getting across the island which actually smelt dangerous, though soon I was waving my hat at the Duke's big shadow over the village of Ellington. On a straight but narrow bit of road a Cortina full of laughing kids drifted by at eighty, a pink rubber pig bobbing at the back window.

The tape deck treated us to popular marches by the Band of the Royal Artillery, which seemed just right for the job in hand. Even Dismal liked it, his fat tail flopping around the seat. Then came Exhortation 974 from Moggerhanger, saying I shouldn't turn the car into a kitchen by leaving potato peelings and onion skins, pea pods and cornflake packets all over the upholstery. He must have chuckled while fiddling about with tapes in his spare moments. Dismal barked the hectoring voice down, so I buzzed the window and threw the tape over a hedge.

I mapped my way through Burton Latimer to dodge Kettering, and from then on a network of lanes took me over uplands and across the middle of Pitsford reservoir. Every two or three junctions I stopped to look at the map, because on this jaunt I couldn't joyride and hope for signposts to put me on track. The sheet of water made Dismal scratch at the window, and before clambering back in he was thirsty again, so I emptied the plastic container into his mobile dog bowl.

I lit another of the chief's cigars and off we went. Close to the raid area I drifted onto the main road facing north after an inconspicuous run through the village in which I saw a woman walking a dog by the post office shop, and a Volvo estate with green Wellingtons in the back parked outside a thatched cottage.